Avatar Hunt
by Troph
Summary: A noir interpretation of the world of Avatar. Private-I Zuko is tasked by crime lord and surrogate father figure Ozai to track down a vigilante causing trouble for their enterprises. Codename: the Avatar.


Avatar Hunt

Chapter 1: Spirits and Cabbages

Uma wasn't expecting anything that foggy evening, standing beside his cabbage stand outside "The Jasmine Dragon" teashop. Like every other day in Ba Sing Se it was hot and unacceptably humid for being in the middle of a desert. The fog was so thick that only a pale phantom of the moon could be seen and the stars had been blotted out entirely. Uma stood at his corner, smiling widely as the citizens of the outer wall passed by him, trying not to think about how uncomfortable and sweaty his nether regions were. Or how his bright green tunic stuck to his tanned skin. Or how his cabbages hadn't been selling well, the good or "special" ones.

Uma tried to distract himself by looking at the people who walked by him. Well, the people he could see through the fog that is. He wanted to be a writer someday, when he made enough to get out of this life, and if he was going to be successful he had to train himself to make up stories. He slumped against the wall of the tea shop and began to imagine.

He saw a sleeping little girl being held in the arms of her elderly father. Or maybe her grandfather. He smiled as he imagined her being exhausted after a day of fun with her friends. Maybe they were playing kickball by "Big Man" Jora's house again, breaking his windows and running away laughing.

A little while later he saw a man walking by speaking with a lovely young woman, a catowl resting on her shoulder. They were young lovers, he decided, who were going back to their apartment to find comfort in each other's embrace.

Yet still later, he spied a man coming straight at him. He was dressed simply in a tunic and trousers, the color wearing thin on both and tearing at the edges. His face was thin and pale, with goat hairs covering his cheeks and chin. He walked like an undead, dragging his left foot behind him, his right arm hanging useless at his side. Uma already knew his story; he was a frequent customer.

Uma got up as the man approached him.

"Special cabbage?" the man asked.

Uma took out a cabbage from the pile. If a Dai-Li agent had picked it up, he might notice that it felt oddly hollow and much lighter than a cabbage should be. He would also hear a strange noise coming from inside, like a maraca. Thankfully, the Dai-Li were withheld from much of the outer wall. A few brutality charges had limited their power in this region and had given men like Uma a chance to profit.

The man looked at the cabbage with a fervent longing, like he wanted to eat it and make love to it at the same time. He made a grab for it, but Uma jerked it out of his reach.

"One silver piece," Uma reminded his customer, looking at him like a child who wanted lichi nuts before he'd cleaned his room.

The man looked downtrodden, desperately checking his pockets for one silver piece with his good hand. Uma didn't know how he felt about what he was doing. He was helping to destroy the lives of people who were already handed a bad pai sho set in life. However, when he went back to his nice apartment, sat down on his feather bed and opened his money bag to see the day's profit, he could feel all doubt flying out of his head.

The man finally pulled out a rusty silver piece, his hand shaking as he dropped it into Uma's outstretched hand. Uma wordlessly gave the man his cabbage. The man gave a small moan of ecstasy as he carried it away under his arm, off somewhere private to enjoy his rush.

Uma sighed and dropped the rusty coin into his mostly empty bag of profits. Azula wouldn't like that. He and his fellow distributers had been losing profits as it was with the vigilante in the Outer Ring. A lanky man in a blue kabuki mask had been robbing pushers in broad daylight with a pair of swords. Sometimes he let them go. Sometimes there'd been bodies, cut into multiple pieces and spread all over the street. Rumor was he'd been staking out this area, in fact. Uma's eyes went wide as that thought crossed his mind. Why hadn't he thought of that before? He took out a cigarette with shaking hands and pulled out a book of matches.

He tried scraping the match across the sandpaper. It snapped. Too much pressure.

He tried another. It lit, but quickly went out. Perhaps the humidity in the air?

A hand encased in black slid into his line of sight. He jumped, almost dropping the cigarette from his mouth. The hand snapped its fingers and a bright orange flame ignited the thumb. Uma leaned forward, lit the cig in the flame and took a long, calming drag.

"Oooh, thank you," he said, nervously laughing out smoke. "You scared the bejeezus out of m-"

Uma felt the hand clamp around his throat and push him against the tea-shop wall before he even fully registered it happening. The cigarette flew from his mouth as the wind was knocked out of him by the force of the impact. The point of a sword was pressed against the center of his forehead and staring into his eyes was a fearsome blue face. The face of a demon, with empty eyes and an evil smile with two huge teeth. He could almost believe it was staring into his soul.

"Please-," Uma pleaded through gasps of air, "-take my, hhhh, money- whatever you-" He felt the grip release from his throat and slid to the ground, coughing and inhaling painfully as his attacker walked over to the cabbage stand. The masked man picked up the sack of coins and tossed them a few times in his hand, making a small clinking sound. Apparently satisfied, the man slipped it into the red sash he wore around his waist.

He looked back at Uma, still kneeling on the ground trying to recover his breath. Uma stared back at him, into those empty black eyes. He imagined the man was deciding whether to let him live or scatter his remains across the city. Thought nearly made him puke.

The man in the mask lifted his foot. Uma flinched, thinking he was going to kick him, but instead the man put his foot on the side of the cabbage cart.

Uma's eyes widened. He looked at the man desperately and shook his head.

The man nodded. Then, he pushed over the cart, cabbages rolling into the street in all directions. The man took off down the street and quickly disappeared in the soupy fog.

"No!" Uma cried, through gasps of air. "My cabbages!"

Zuko slammed the door so hard he thought the window in the frame my shatter. He knew he would see nothing in the dense fog, but habit forced him to run to the window and check the streets. He peaked through the blinds. There was nothing but the mist and the dim glow of the lantern just below, desperately trying to shine in the grey. He heard nothing except his own breathing. Not even an ostrich horse whinnied.

Zuko didn't trust the silence. He didn't trust his ears to tell him that everything was fine. There was a tension in the air. The hairs on his arms were on end and he could feel a heat in the air that wasn't natural.

 _You're too stressed, Zuko._ He could still hear that voice as if he were in the room. _Tension is not good for a man's soul. It makes his distrustful and unhappy._

Zuko let his shoulders roll back, a pinching in his muscles he didn't know had been there let itself go. He sighed and took the mask off, only now realizing how hot it had been underneath. He stared at it, looking into its empty black eyes and its cruel smile. It brought back memories of when he had first crafted it, tears falling on the fresh wood like a mournful baptism. It had only been a week since his uncle's death and he could still feel the anger, sadness and darkness that went into the face he now wore most nights.

He pulled away the old tapestry rug to reveal a metal safe, opened it and dropped the mask in. The mask stared back up at him from the bottom. Zuko felt like it was mocking him. He swung his swords from his back, removed them and threw the sheathe in after the mask.

After replacing the rug, he carefully replaced the weapons in their decorative position behind his desk. He slumped into his chair and took a look around his office. Small place, carpet covering most of the floor. Door with his name and occupation on the glass facing opposite a window that looked out onto the street. His desk was small, the wood chipping in most places. There were no shelves, no filing cabinets, not even a picture hanging from the wall. Only the swords hanging crisscrossed above him. Looked like a perfectly ordinary PI's office, nothing at all like the hideout for a vigilante.

Satisfied with his cover-up, Zuko pulled a silver canteen out of the bottom of drawer of his desk and took a swig. He immediately spit it out with a grimace. _This tea is nothing but hot leaf juice!_ he found himself remembering. Iroh had said that straight to his face the first time he had tasted Zuko's tea. A small grin came to his lips as he lit a small flame in the palm of his hand. He put it under the canteen and held it there for a few seconds. He took another sip. Perfect.

He put his feet up on the desk, breathing slowly the way Iroh had taught him. He sipped the hot tea, feeling it go all the way down to his stomach, a pleasant warmth spreading all over his body. He tried to calm his mind, forget about his problems; the mobsters breathing down his neck, the fact that he was stealing from them to pay his mortgage. He felt like there was an anvil dangling over his head and it was ready to drop.

He began a little hum, an old rhyme his uncle had taught him.

 _Don't fall in love with a travelling girl,_

 _she'll leave you broke and brokenhearted,_

 _Don't fall in love with a wayward woman, don't even begin to start it._

The smell of the tea and the silence of the night filled his senses. The weariness of his limbs overwhelmed him. He let his eyes droop, his breathing slowed and his head fell heavily on his chest.


End file.
